Uhm wth wikia?

[Seraph]

To be clear: we are NOT talking about straight copy-pasta of a blog entry/forum post, or something to that effect (a problem that is not solved even by giving credit). We're talking about credit for finding exact numbers, discovering strategies, etc. The only reason to complain about not getting credit for discovering the exact formula for, say, ranged delay is because you want to see your name up in lights, which is, frankly, stupid. You are not the owner of that information.

It's more about pointing where you got information from so that people can attempt to verify it's correctness, or cross reference it against something else. Pictures are probably a bad example, but my point still stands.

If you could easily find out who wrote that strat, calculated that formula, took that picture, it's much easier to fix problems and facilitate information flow instead of having a 'Random Question Thread' be one of the best sources of arbitrary game information. Hell, I honestly wonder how many edits on both Wikis are because of that thread alone.

[Spider-Dan]

It's more about pointing where you got information from so that people can attempt to verify it's correctness, or cross reference it against something else.

Do you apply the same standard here?

In any case, it seems misguided to blame FFXIwiki's administration for their users' lack of thoroughness. The only thing they can do is make it a requirement, which is a solution far, far worse than the original problem.

[Seraph]

Do you apply the same standard here?

In any case, it seems misguided to blame FFXIwiki's administration for their users' lack of thoroughness. The only thing they can do is make it a requirement, which is a solution far, far worse than the original problem.

For BG wiki? Absolutely.

I'm only slamming the admins there because there are direct examples of them breaking their own rules, so people coming in here marching and saying that the wiki admins always follow policy are (either deliberately or unknowingly) full of shit.

Think of it as a failsafe for people posting bullshit. If there is no specific source, you have an option to specify that, but include the poster who updated it so they are indirectly the source, and held responsible for the edit. This way, people know who to ask or at least know who added the information as opposed to the 'Is the wiki right?' question we hear all the time.

Sure, it's more work, but leads to a better product. 'Being lazy' should play no part in the development of either wiki.

[ringthree]

For BG wiki? Absolutely.

No, for BG, or any forum for that matter. Dan has a point here, the wiki is no different than a forum. Why hold the wiki to such high citation standards when people on forums do that stuff all the time?

[Cadsuane]

Because "painfully obvious" things like yokodama and blink tanking were totally covered in the Brady guide, right?

I mean, seriously... you're defending the Brady guide as a perfectly legitimate STRATEGY source for the first six months this game was out? The Brady guide was good for exactly two things:

1) Mission/quest walkthrough
2) Item/gear lists

The strategy in that guide was utter trash from day 1, and I'm not sure why I'm the first one to point this out to you.

Simmer down there sparky, and lay off the straw man. I didn't challenge you to pistols at dawn. I also didn't say anything about brady guide's strategy info so I obviously couldn't have been defending it. And yes, the guide was full of errors and absurdities and omissions; no one's contesting that running gag either.

Now, asserting that yokodama and blink tanking were initially brought to light for the NA community by importers is actually addressing the argument. I'll address it back and say it's dubious to say that importers in all their wisdom were solely or even significantly responsible for disseminating that knowledge seeing as how A.) yokodama/fuidama is plainly a JP convention which importers would scarcely have had an informational monopoly over and B.) blink tanking wasn't even remotely relevant during that timeframe seeing as how ninja had just been introduced to the game with zilaart, and by the time it became prevalent, there were enough non-importer haijins to figure that shit out for themselves.

Yeah, the importers were the first to 75 and "HNM" on Roc/Sim and the first to get spike failed. They were the first guys to beat kirin with 50 odd guys 20 of which were plds and whms and take five hours doing it. The first to wipe to hakutaku, genbu, etc. And they were the first guys to entertain us with quality HNM drama back when HNM drama was still cool and exciting. None of this is strictly useful information to have except for, and I already mentioned this, knowing how not to run an endgame shell. A few months after when NAs were getting their first 75s, they became irrelevant, and, jaded by the gross inhumanity of 2003-2004 endgame, they quit in droves.

[Ksandra]

As a car enthusiast I would just like to say that owing a VW Bug pretty much does make you a Nazi.

I hope your teasing, because that's a big accusation to make, and rather ridiculous to say.

[ringthree]

I hope your teasing, because that's a big accusation to make, and rather ridiculous to say.

VW Bug owners are not only Nazi's but the actual reincarnation of Hitler... and the Anti-christ... and they smell.

[Spider-Dan]

Now, asserting that yokodama and blink tanking were initially brought to light for the NA community by importers is actually addressing the argument. I'll address it back and say it's dubious to say that importers in all their wisdom were solely or even significantly responsible for disseminating that knowledge seeing as how A.) yokodama/fuidama is plainly a JP convention which importers would scarcely have had an informational monopoly over and B.) blink tanking wasn't even remotely relevant during that timeframe seeing as how ninja had just been introduced to the game with zilaart, and by the time it became prevalent, there were enough non-importer haijins to figure that shit out for themselves.

If you did not read forums with high numbers of importers or bilingual ENG/JP (which essentially boils down to FFXIOnline) then it is highly unlikely that you were blink tanking during the first 6 months after NA release (remember the timeframe, here) and almost guaranteed that you didn't even know what yokodama was, much less how to do it. The argument that importers do not have a monopoly over information discovered by JP playerbase is irrelevant to anyone that does not understand Japanese; the strategies in question were disseminated in three ways:

- you could read Japanese yourself
- you read it on a forum with a large importer population
- you read it a few months later after importer forum readers started trafficking the strategies to NA forums

But to get back to the main point: if you seriously believe that the importer community contributed nothing to the early-game of English-language FFXI, you really don't understand where your information came from. There were no useful sources for strategy early on, and things that you describe as blatantly self-evident (e.g. DRK should not sub SMN) were not so obvious (or even accurate) during the 1.5 years before the NA release (at one point, staff WAR/WHM was the highest demand DD).

In a thread where so much is made about giving people credit, claiming that the NA community independently fast-tracked itself to the same conclusions that it took the JPs nearly two years to divine seems just a little self-serving.

[Seraph]

No, for BG, or any forum for that matter. Dan has a point here, the wiki is no different than a forum. Why hold the wiki to such high citation standards when people on forums do that stuff all the time?

Because on a forum you know who posted a post, and on a wiki you don't necessarily know who made content additions. Similar, but definitely not the same.

Also, it depends on how someone on a forum posts. Your assumption is that someone does a copy/paste of data uncited, but if they just post a link it is essentially cited automatically (unless the destination of the link itself doesn't cite info, but that's a different issue). If they actually say where it's from, that's the same thing too.

[Spider-Dan]

Because on a forum you know who posted a post, and on a wiki you don't necessarily know who made content additions.

Page History

We're not talking about hypothetical wikis that might allow anonymous editing. We're talking about a specific wiki (or two, if you like) that does not.

Also, it depends on how someone on a forum posts. Your assumption is that someone does a copy/paste of data uncited, but if they just post a link it is essentially cited automatically (unless the link itself doesn't cite info, but that's a different issue).

So what about all the uncited data posted in threads? Shouldn't the various Random Question threads be a glaring problem, by your standards?

[Seraph]

Page History


So what about all the uncited data posted in threads? Shouldn't the various Random Question threads be a glaring problem, by your standards?

Assuming you are challenging my personal stance, no, because BG isn't making money off of that thread. 'Random Question' is also a little unique in that sometimes the questions asked don't necessarily require just factual information, sometimes it's asking for opinions (though much of this was moved a while back to the 'Whats Better' thread, specifically for gear).

If you are indirectly asking if that would make the thread much better, than yes, having cites for unoriginal information would be helpful. Not everything in there is unoriginal though, and the same thing can be said for either wiki.

I guess my counter question is why are people so defensive about having to cite 'factual information' pulled from other sources? I'm not really referring to guides, more like derived formulas, unique discoveries, etc.

Edit: And really, shouldn't the wikis be held to a higher standard than just discussion forums? In my mind, the data base you built should have a higher standard of quality than the discussions that lead to it's creation.

[ringthree]

So it would be ok that the FFXIwiki is making money off of the information if they cite the information? Technically, the FFXIwiki is not making money off of the information. They charge nothing to go to the site. They are making money from the ads on the site. Sure, the information is a draw to the site, but you can't possibly be making the distinction that it's OK for them to make money off of the information as long as they cite the information.

Seraph, don't get me wrong, I understand your (and everyone else's) gut feeling on this, it just don't stand up after all the time that has passed and the irrelevance of this whole matter in the grand scheme of things.

I can't come up with a single reason that wiki's should have a higher standard than forums. Again, I agree with your gut feeling on it, I think they should have a higher standard, there is just no logical reason why.

[Seraph]

So it would be ok that the FFXIwiki is making money off of the information if they cite the information? Technically, the FFXIwiki is not making money off of the information. They charge nothing to go to the site. They are making money from the ads on the site. Sure, the information is a draw to the site, but you can't possibly be making the distinction that it's OK for them to make money off of the information as long as they cite the information.

I don't agree at all with your bolded statement. I didn't say they were charging admission, but saying 'the wiki doesn't make money off of it's information database' is just really dumb, I'm sorry.

The morality of making money of off cited and uncited information wasn't my point. It isn't an issue of morality, it's an issue of courtesy. Let's even call it a professional courtesy since we are still talking about a business.

Seraph, don't get me wrong, I understand your (and everyone else's) gut feeling on this, it just don't stand up after all the time that has passed and the irrelevance of this whole matter in the grand scheme of things.

I didn't say it would change overnight, but saying it is irrelavant because it is in the past is also stupid. I'm not saying fester over these past events, I'm saying let's learn from them and improve the system the wikis use based on this previous idiocy.

I can't come up with a single reason that wiki's should have a higher standard than forums. Again, I agree with your gut feeling on it, I think they should have a higher standard, there is just no logical reason why.

The wikis are advertising a database of knowledge (which should really be cited properly), the forums are advertising....a discussion forum. Sure, there might be knowledge and such there, but every post doesn't necessarily need a disclaimer there.

...or does it?

[Seraph]

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I know I would laugh every time I read through it...

[Cadsuane]

If you did not read forums with high numbers of importers or bilingual ENG/JP (which essentially boils down to FFXIOnline) then it is highly unlikely that you were blink tanking during the first 6 months after NA release (remember the timeframe, here) and almost guaranteed that you didn't even know what yokodama was, much less how to do it.

Remember also that yokodama was patched almost immediately after the release and multi hit tp not long after (might have even been the same patch), so alot of that importer wisdom was obsolete pretty quickly. The rest was usually inaccurate. Was a common conception that SAM and DRK are more inaccurate than other melee (they have no inherent accuracy disadvantage), that WAR and MNK are sub par damage dealers (actually the most powerful next to ranger at the time), and that subbing THF makes you more accurate because of the extra dex it gives you (lol).

I mean, yeah, alright, ffxionline had some genuine information on occasion and some importer posters were on the ball. You could read about distortion/light partners and usually get a pretty decent idea on what the best job combos were. It's just that all of that information was either regurgitated JP conventions or simple emphasis on the obvious. Furthermore the window of time that any of that importer influence was useful was half a year at best, or as long as it took for NAs to pick up on conventions and figure out the SC chart.

In a thread where so much is made about giving people credit, claiming that the NA community independently fast-tracked itself to the same conclusions that it took the JPs nearly two years to divine seems just a little self-serving.

Why not? FFXI was hardly the same game throughout those nearly two years, and the JPs are notoriously uncreative.

[Spider-Dan]

Assuming you are challenging my personal stance, no, because BG isn't making money off of that thread.

edit:
http://venomweb.150m.com/ffxi/bg-ads2.png
I presume now you will say that all the actions that BG's administration takes are based solely on maximizing page views and ad revenue, just as you do for FFXIwiki's administration, right?

I guess my counter question is why are people so defensive about having to cite 'factual information' pulled from other sources? I'm not really referring to guides, more like derived formulas, unique discoveries, etc.

Citing your sources and giving credit is the polite, courteous thing to do.

Failing to do so is not cause for accusing them of stealing others' work and founding an entirely new competing wiki, designed specifically to push them out of relevance.

P.S. Do not take my post as an attack on BG's administration for putting up ads. I am aware that web hosting does not magically pay for itself. I am simply pointing out the absurdity of people who claim that hosting ads on your site means that every decision you make henceforth must be squarely focused on page count and profit margin.

[Kirschy]

Anyone who was around during the Wiki vs BG fighta knows there were a lot of arguing about BG info appearing on wiki. It made a situation where wiki was inclined to not include any info with BG citations/sources. (The same held true for BG-Wiki using Wiki info.) It won't help to just remove info without any sources, that would just hurt the community. But it's created a bad situation, and I want to complain about it.

If I go on Wiki tomorrow and it says Death Penalty adds 10% potency to quick draw, and it doesn't include a source, I'm gonna be upset. How do I know how legit the info is? (This scenario happend to me when I was skeptical of Accuracy testing, and Wiki had zero sources for me to confirm their level correction or formulas.)

In a better scenario, if you goto their Fast Cast page they have links to the testing done at Alla. I was able to read through these tests, see how they obtained the info and decide for myself how legit the info was. I was able to decide that better precision is possible and perform better testing. (Their testing is off by over 2% I might add.)

There's no easy fix or solution to the problem, I was just pointing it out because it bothers me. The wiki is only as reliable as the information that's listed. If the information is lacking in resources and citation, it makes the information unreliable.

[Suiram]

If I go on Wiki tomorrow and it says Death Penalty adds 10% potency to quick draw, and it doesn't include a source, I'm gonna be upset. How do I know how legit the info is? (This scenario happend to me when I was skeptical of Accuracy testing, and Wiki had zero sources for me to confirm their level correction or formulas.)

Actually when VZX created that page he included a link at the bottom, and later fixed it when there was a forum issue that disrupted the link. Later on, someone came along and just deleted it lol

Hit Rate - FFXIclopedia, the Final Fantasy XI wiki - Characters, items, jobs, and more

[ringthree]

I don't agree at all with your bolded statement. I didn't say they were charging admission, but saying 'the wiki doesn't make money off of it's information database' is just really dumb, I'm sorry.

I didn't make a judgment call on what they are doing. But in the most technical sense I am correct. There is no charge to look at the information on the wiki, there is no other fee. All of their revenue comes from ads. The information database is the draw, definitely, but that is neither here nor there when it comes to this point.

The morality of making money of off cited and uncited information wasn't my point. It isn't an issue of morality, it's an issue of courtesy. Let's even call it a professional courtesy since we are still talking about a business.

You were the one that created the stipulation that it wouldn't be so bad if they didn't make money off of the wiki. I do agree with your statement about it being a courtesy, but I think that you will find that when politely requested the admins at the wiki (at least the good ones) will usually take action to rectify the situations. There are of course exceptions, and people will always point them out, but the people making the requests are not always correct.

There is a problem with the vilification that still occurs, because the rhetoric doesn't match the reality.

I didn't say it would change overnight, but saying it is irrelavant because it is in the past is also stupid. I'm not saying fester over these past events, I'm saying let's learn from them and improve the system the wikis use based on this previous idiocy.

I am not trying to whitewash the history, I am saying get over it. I think we pretty much agree on that point. I do have a problem with the tossing of stones from a glass house though. There are simple and effective methods to try to improve the way that the FFXIwiki is run, but I don't think threatening to ban people from BG is one of those methods.

The wikis are advertising a database of knowledge (which should really be cited properly), the forums are advertising....a discussion forum. Sure, there might be knowledge and such there, but every post doesn't necessarily need a disclaimer there.

...or does it?

It does not, and you know it doesn't. I will reference my response to Kaeko here, and suggest that citations are good for creating a continuity of knowledge, but nothing more. While copying and pasting is poor form of course, the adding of knowledge from another source should be encouraged not rejected just because their isn't a bibliography attached to every wiki page.

If you are rejecting copying and pasting, I think that the wiki admin would definitely agree with you, and so would I. But doing things like Ashira suggested that she did and just delete information without explanation just appears as someone being a wiki saboteur. If you believe that something should be cited because it is a copy and paste you should report the page to the admin, and provide them the original location of the information. Complaining about it on BG and doing nothing is the same thing as the people that complained about the CC verification issue and didn't call SE to try to resolve the situation.

[Seraph]

edit:
http://venomweb.150m.com/ffxi/bg-ads2.png
I presume now you will say that all the actions that BG's administration takes are based solely on maximizing page views and ad revenue, just as you do for FFXIwiki's administration, right?


Citing your sources and giving credit is the polite, courteous thing to do.

Failing to do so is not cause for accusing them of stealing others' work and founding an entirely new competing wiki, designed specifically to push them out of relevance.

P.S. Do not take my post as an attack on BG's administration for putting up ads. I am aware that web hosting does not magically pay for itself. I am simply pointing out the absurdity of people who claim that hosting ads on your site means that every decision you make henceforth must be squarely focused on page count and profit margin.

I'm not including 'operating costs' when I make the claim someone is 'making money' I am implying strictly profit. If BG is actually pulling a profit from the ads they display, I will be seriously impressed. I'm going to go on a hunch here and assume they aren't.

If you are implying that wiki doesn't have profit in mind as one of their goals (and therefore, influences) when they make decisions, I think YOU are really being absurd.

In fact, you really haven't directly clashed with any of my ideas, just presented a bunch of 'well what about THIS!?!?!' arguments. So again, why is it a problem to hold wiki admins, and even users, to a higher standard of quality? This isn't limited to just wikia either. Feel free to actually answer my question.


Also, just a historical heads up, BG wiki wasn't founded just because Wikia failed to cite their information. I think I can actually literally use the word 'steal' now.